


Doll's eyes

by Andromeda (athalara)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Drama, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athalara/pseuds/Andromeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson's eyes stared at the wall, unmoving, lifeless like the doll's. A Beckett/Zelenka centered story, with implied McKay/Sheppard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doll's eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting of an old fic to centralize my fiction here. Originally written in 2006.  
> milacku: Czeck for "dearie", "honey".

BIP.

When he was young, his grandmother had a doll, an old porcelain doll her mother gave her as a child. It always sat on a satin pillow over a child-sized rocking chair in his grandmother's room. The face was finely sculpted and carefully painted, framed by a cascade of thick dark blonde curls, and the pale hands had perfectly defined nails. The turn of the century style white dress was a bit ragged at the hem, but his grandmother kept it perfectly clean. His sister thought it was the most beautiful doll she'd ever seen and hoped to inherit it one day. But, for him, the perfect face or the soft dress could not hide the shiver he got when he looked to the still, always open, blue eyes, with the correctly centered pupil and the meticulously painted iris - lifeless eyes that wanted to imitate life but only became a cruelly twisted parody of it.

BIP.

Sitting in the infirmary bed, Carson reminded Radek of that doll. He sat perfectly still in the crisp sheets, his arms carefully posed by his sides with the hands sitting on soft cushions, the heart monitor attached to one of his fingers. His short beard contrasted sharply with the paler skin but overall he looked relaxed and peaceful. Unless you looked at his eyes.

BIP.

Those expressive blue eyes were the first thing he'd noticed about Carson. They opened in surprise at the birthday party in Antarctica and shined with mischievousness when he exchanged friendly banter with Rodney; they were heavy with unshed tears when he returned from Hoff and softened when he told Radek he loved him for the first time.

BIP.

Those eyes now stared at the wall, unmoving, lifeless like the doll's.

BIP.

"Radek?" Rodney was hovering, just inside the door, playing nervously with the hem of his jacket and not looking at him for more than a second at a time.

"You haven't found anything, right?" Radek asked.

"Not... exactly," Rodney specified. "We found the device in the database. It was a line of investigation about immortality before they attempted ascension, but it was quickly discarded and forbidden." He looked directly at Radek for first time. "Nobody ever recovered from its effects. The descriptions are sketchy at best, but," he tried to smile but it was ragged at the edges," Dr. Kandel thinks it has some conceptual similitude to the Asgard cloning process and when the Daedalus returns we can ask Hermiod and..." Rodney ran out of steam and let his hands drop by his sides, "we have no fucking idea of what we are dealing with."

"Carson would have a field day hearing you admit defeat," Radek smiled mirthlessly. Rodney raised his head quickly, the look in his eyes fierce.

"I'm not admitting defeat! I'm going to do my damn best to help him! Don't ever t..."

"I know." Radek interrupted him. "I'm sorry. Thank you."

"I'm going back to the lab," Rodney said, signaling over his shoulder. "I can run the..."

"Tomorrow is soon enough for that, Rodney." His friend looked at him, puzzled. Looking at his lover, Radek raised his hand to brush a stray hair away from Carson's forehead, but Carson's eyes did not soften in a shy smile this time. "This city is a technological landmine, and we never know what we are going to find around the next corner." Radek looked back at Rodney. "Go home to John, Rodney. We'll still be here tomorrow."

Rodney took a breath to start speaking, but then let it go, deflated, and just nodded. "Good night, Radek."

"Good night, Rodney."

 

BIP.

Radek used a warm towel to clean the last of the shaving cream away. "Here you go, milacku, all nice and clean." Turning Carson slightly, he started brushing his hair. "It's getting longer. You need a trimming back there. I'll ask Sergeant Matheson if he can come by again this evening. What you think?," he chuckles. "Yes, I'll bribe him with a bar of Rodney's Cadbury stash so he won't cut it military short. Ok, there it is." Radek gave it a final touch with his own fingers, enjoying the feel of his lover's hair sliding between them. Moving carefully from behind him, he slowly let Carson settle against the just-puffed pillows.

"All ready and handsome. No wonder the nurses can't stay away from your bed." He straightened Carson's scrubs painstakingly so there were no creases than could dig into his skin. He removed the sheet, checking that the soft wedges between knees and ankles were accurately in place and that the pillows were correctly supporting his feet, keeping his heels off the bed and preventing bedsores. He then arranged the sheets again, folding the corners meticulously. The nurses had long ago stopped being upset at him for all of this. They knew it wasn't that Radek didn't trust their work, but that he needed to feel he was doing something.

"Well, milacku, I need to go to work. Rodney will start barking for my head any minute now." He kissed Carson's lips softly. "I'll be back for lunch, ok?" Carson's blue eyes kept looking straight ahead, unmoving except for the automatic blinking. Radek rested his forehead on his lover's, taking in the smell of antiseptic soap and shaving cream, and resisted for the umpteenth time the urge to shake him forcefully, to demand he to wake up, to beg him to come back.

"Love you." With a last kiss to Carson's forehead, Radek got up and left.

BIP.

The box had been tucked under his bed since he arrived on Atlantis, never opened. Radek touched the dark mahogany surface, feeling the fine grain under the varnish, the nick on the top corner made when his grandmother was fleeing from the Nazi troops, the stain where his sister Milena dropped the coffee over it when her hands could no longer hold the cup straight. He flipped open the double metallic lock with his thumbs, lifting the lid slowly, letting out the smell of talcum powder, old fabric, his grandmother's trademark lily perfume and the still lingering tang of hospital antiseptic. The doll was lying in her velvet bed, untouched since he'd put it inside on the day Milena died.

Radek took the doll out, cradling its head on his left hand and folding the doll's legs with his right so it could sit on the edge of the open box. The acid-free tissue that protected the body from the clothes crackled and crinkled with the movement, making the yellowed dress fall unnaturally. The wig, made from real human hair, felt incredibly soft under his fingers, the curls still keeping the shape Milena's shaking fingers had forced upon them. The doll's skin, as pale as hers in the last days, was dusty under his fingers, the texture broken only by the painted surface of the eyes, uncannily similar in color to Carson's. Dull and lifeless, like Milena's in her last weeks; staring unblinkingly ahead, like Carson's.

The porcelain made a dry sound when it impacted against the metal wall with all the strength of Radek's pain behind, the sound echoing in the silent room when the doll fell to the floor, a heap of hair, fabric and broken porcelain.

Radek curled on the floor and buried his face in his arms, his sleeve catching his tears while he ignored the single porcelain eye still staring unblinkingly at him.

BIP

\- END -


End file.
